I lurched awake to what sounded like someone screaming up from the bottom of a well.
Someone patted me on the head.
Neve spoke, “Go back to sleep. It’s just this douchebag’s love interest getting murdered.”
Blinking blearily, I stared at the out-of-focus colours of the T.V., waiting for it to coalesce into a comprehensible scene.
Neve, Daria, Nell, and I were sprawled across a couch too small for four people, but we were making it work. Nell sat primly upside-down, looking up at the movie. Neve had my legs on her lap and Daria’s foot was somehow near my head, as she had draped a leg across Neve’s shoulders.
“I dunno. He’s not so bad,” Daria said as she threw a sour candy at Nell’s open mouth. It bounced off her nose to join a mess on the floor. Nell’s belly vibrated against the back of my head as she laughed.
Neve gestured angrily with a handful of floppy gummy worms at the onscreen protagonist. “He got her in that situation. Now he’s acting all surprised that she got burned alive in candle wax?”
“When you’re in love, you get burned sometimes,” Daria said, kissing Neve’s hand and then biting and pulling a gummy worm out of her grasp.
It was warm and the movie was playing quietly. My eyelids fluttered closed.
…
“Yes!”
I opened my eyes again and looked over to where AJ was playing an old video game console we had found. He had his fists in the air, then looked sheepish as he lowered them. “Sorry. Took me ages to beat level one. Old games are stupid hard.”
On the T.V. someone was kissing a rotting skeleton.
“Are we still on Candleman 3?” I asked, perplexed.
“You slept through the end of it. He got his wick snipped. Now we’re watching Corpse Regalia.”
“Mm.” I sat up and massaged my neck.
“I guess so,” I said, carefully shifting position to watch the screen better.
“A H.E.S.P. guy is coming down the stairs,” AJ said softly, not looking away from his video game.
Daria groaned. “Again?! This guy just doesn’t know when to quit.” Her hand was deep inside a chip bag and she raised it, spilling crumbs onto the floor.
The door to the upstairs was pushed open.
A tense-looking man poked his head in. “Excuse me.”
She hurled the chip bag at him which ended up just spreading chips across the floor. “Stay outta the Wolf den!” she snarled.
“Just checking on-”
“We’re fine,” Neve said coldly. “Goodbye.”
He tried shutting the door but something invisible stopped him and he gave up and left.
Nell sighed and turned back to the movie. “I should probably go talk to them.”
“Let them clean up their own mess,” Daria said. “We did our part. We aren’t responsible for holding what’s left of H.E.S.P. together or tracking down traitors. Let the bigwigs sort it out.”
On the T.V. screen there was a person wearing human bones as armour. They were scaling a cliff in torrential rain while yelling someone’s name. It seemed like a dumb movie, but that was the point. We were all trying to turn our brains off.
We were holed up in the safehouse the Director had told us about, in a quiet rural town. Daria had bought out the entire snack section of a nearby convenience store and we were spending the hours playing board games, watching movies, and talking about shit that didn’t matter.
It had been around a week since the battle but it was hard to keep track of the days when I wasn’t sleeping at night.
It was quiet again, save for the bleeps and blops of AJ’s game and the movie soundtrack.
There was a thud on the stairs, followed by a rapid series of thuds of someone riding the stairs down on their butt. Tom burst through the door and sprawled onto the carpet, flinging pizza boxes across the room.
“Pizza,” he mumbled into the carpet.
—
We sat around the coffee table, eating greasy slices of cheese and pepperoni.
AJ fidgeted constantly, shooting glances at our faces. I could tell he wanted to gush about the battle. He’d tried the first day we’d arrived, but no one had been able to reciprocate his enthusiasm. He had caught on quickly and now was forcing himself to match the mood.
Tom dragged a piece of pizza away from his mouth, stretching a string of mozzarella to a great length until he was looking at the ceiling. Daria karate chopped the middle, causing the cheese to drape across Tom’s lap. He managed to look highly offended with a mouth full of pizza. AJ snickered.
“Y’know,” Tom said, swallowing. “When we were kids we used to go to the arcade and get pizza like this. Then we’d go around and trade slices for people’s tickets. It was a good business model. We only needed a few slices each but it was cheaper than trying to win prizes on those scam machines. Except for DDR, Kay was godlike at that one. I bet Nick would give her a run for her money.”
His grin faltered. “Would’ve been nice to see.”
A lump wedged itself into my throat.
Nell’s eyes were on me. Then she stood and walked to the other side of the room. When she returned, she had a large vase in her hands. She sat it in the middle of the table and a large flower emerged. It bloomed, petals unfurling into earthy hues, curling down the sides of the vase. At the center of the flower sat Kay’s butterfly.
“The petals are the same colour as her eyes,” Tom said hoarsely. “Nice touch.”
“I tried finding a spider web to put in there too,” Nell said softly, watching me. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”
AJ stood abruptly. “There’s people at the door still.”
“Don’t answer it,” Daria said.
“I’m not gonna. I’m just gonna check it out.” With his excuse stated, he quickly ran up the stairs.
Daria cracked open a drink and held it up. “To those we’ve lost.”
The group popped the tabs on beers and sodas, raising them together. We shared a moment of silence, the sound of bubbles plinking against aluminum to fill the void.
The lump in my throat wasn’t getting any smaller. I squeezed my fists as tight as I could.
Tom bent his head and his shoulders shook.
I could still see it vividly when I closed my eyes. The sight of Kay’s face breaking apart into a thousand pieces. The last thing she’d felt was fear and then… what?
Was she really gone? A book left unfinished, just cutting off in the middle of a sentence?
How did I let this happen? Tom was distraught and-
Tom sniffed loudly and raised his head. He stared at me with wet eyes. Then he grabbed a slice of pizza and began wolfing it down like he was starving. A greasy finger was raised and pointed at me.
He spoke with a half-full mouth, “Nick?”
I sniffed back tears. “Yeah?”
“Shut uuuuuuuuuuup.”
I blinked. “I didn’t say anything.”
He swallowed and for a brief moment I thought he was going to choke. But he got it down, Daria slapping his back. “Mmph. You were going to. And I bet anything you were going to apologize. I don’t wanna hear it.”
My heart sank.
“Because she knew what she was doing. And she would kick your ass if you took the blame for what happened.”
“I would’ve liked to see Kay kicking someone’s ass,” Nell said with a small smile.
“You would have seen a royal ass-whooping. Piledrivers off the top rope and shit. ‘Cause the last thing she would have wanted would be for you to get all stuck in your own head, reliving her worst moment. There was so much good before that.”
I wiped my eyes and tried to nod.
“Good. We all miss her. But in a fond way, like how you would miss a great summer vacation.”
AJ returned to the room looking nervous.
“AJ!” Tom shouted, raising his arms. “I heard you beat Chute ‘Em Up!”
“I beat the first level.”
“That’s the best part. It’s all downhill from there. Now let me show you a real arcade classic…”
Tom took AJ by the shoulders and led him to the closet where the video games were stowed away in boxes.
AJ used his Shape to make his voice emanate between Nell and I, “The H.E.S.P. guy wants to speak with Nell. He isn’t leaving.”
Nell exhaled and rubbed her reddened eyes. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll go see what they want. Then I’m gonna go read with Wire for a bit.” She smiled at me. “See you tomorrow?”
I forced out a smile. “Yeah.”
Daria lifted a listless Neve to her feet. “We’re gonna go have some alone time. See you all in the morning.” She placed her feet behind Neve’s and marched her step by step down the hall to their room.
I gathered up the pizza boxes and plates and took them upstairs.
Wire was sitting at the kitchen table, nose in a book, the slice of pizza sitting in front of him untouched. Through the kitchen window I could see Nell talking to the H.E.S.P. agent outside on the porch. I started to load dishes into the dishwasher slowly. There wasn’t any point to getting the chore done faster. I’d be stacking dishes all night if it would distract me without waking the others.
“Nell’s been talking a lot of big game.”
I turned to Wire. He stared at me over the top of his book.
“About?”
“What comes next. Moving on from a cycle of suffering. Making something new. I’m still skeptical. A part of me thinks that there is no other way for people like us to live.”
I turned back to my task and was disappointed to see I’d almost finished already. “It’s good to be skeptical. You want to make sure when you find a passion that it’s real. Otherwise you won’t be happy.”
“Is that the point of life?” he asked the question genuinely.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m always the most satisfied when I’m in the middle of something that consumes my whole focus. Something worth dedicating my whole being to, to the point I’m not really thinking anymore.”
“How anti-intellectual.”
“That’s not it. It’s good to think things through carefully. But at some point the thinking itself, the worrying, it becomes a prison.”
I rinsed off my hands and dried them on a towel.
Wire lowered the book to the table. “Not saying I disagree, but when I was locked up in my room at Organ, my thoughts were the only place I was free. In my mind, I could be anywhere else, even in other realms of existence.”
“That’s a good point,” I admitted. “I guess I’m a bit biased at the moment.”
“Why?”
The front door opened and Nell came back inside.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him.
“There’s some interesting things happening,” Nell said, lacing her fingers together and stretching them over her head. “But I’m actually pretty beat. Wire, can we do some reading together tomorrow?”
Wire nodded.
“Alright,” she turned to me and gave me a genuine smile. “I’ll fill you in tomorrow. I’m actually getting a little excited.”
“G’night,” I said weakly.
Nell headed to her room. Wire bookmarked his page and left too.
I was left alone.
Tom and AJ were still playing games in the basement. I thought about joining them but the thought that Tom might bring up Kay again made it hard.
It was a bit too cold outside to go for a comfortable walk. We’d have to buy some warmer clothes.
Eventually, I found myself back in my room, standing in the dark. My head felt heavy but the bed looked anything but welcoming.
I reached under the pillow and my fingers brushed against a small plastic container before I withdrew the crumpled up envelope that had come with it. My heart thudded loudly in the small room as I read the contents of the letter again.
Nell pulsed concern and I squeezed my feelings up into a tight ball and swallowed, stuffing the letter back under the pillow.
I stood next to the bed and shut my eyes, focusing on nothing but our connection. Nell’s calm thoughts washed over me in waves. It was like sitting on a quiet beach at night, just listening to the waves lap along the shore.
After some time, the waves lapsed into quiet. Nell was asleep.
That’s when the fingers of the Broken-Neck-Man crawled along my neck.
I jerked back my head, hitting the wall.
Jason is dead. Kay is dead. Guess who’s next?
The panic slammed into me, crushing my chest. My breaths came in quick gasps.
No no no no. Please.
I knelt down and gripped the blankets on the bed, trembling. I felt sick with worry.
It won’t be you. It’ll be Nell.
The feeling was so intense I couldn’t breathe. It always waited until I was alone. The pressure in my head threatened to split my skull any second, but it never did. It just kept building.
I’d had enough. I reached beneath my shirt, touching my chest, pulling.
Flesh melted and stretched. Strings of goop that was me stretched between my fingers. I sank them deeper, searching for some relief.
Blood ran down my stomach, staining my pants, only to slowly suck back up again into my body. I pushed and probed, close to vomiting, groping around in the dark for…
Nothing. There’s nothing to find.
My fingers brushed against my hearts and my whole body convulsed. There were still two. My old one that had been crushed by Beth at Cathrow Farm. A reminder of what Nell had done for me since the beginning.
I pulled my hands free like they were stuck in mud. Then I pushed them under the pillow, this time grabbing the plastic cylinder.
Crying, cold and hot at once, I stared at the bottle of pills for so long that when I finally looked away it was imprinted on my vision.
The note was there too, nestled in my mind.
It read: Greetings Wolf. You are hereby invited to A Masked Dinner of Wolves at the estate of the Wulf family. Address, date, and time are listed below. Your reason for attending is the one you are imagining. No Witches will be allowed to attend, excepting the host. Please partake in the medicine enclosed within. It is a special mood suppressant that will allow us to have a delightful evening without any Shaping. We await your favorable response.
Scrawled below, in messy red ink: I’m waiting, Nick. It’s time for our finale.
If I took the pills, would that make this feeling end?
I groaned and pitched bottle into the trash basket where it rattled around before coming to rest.
My fingers pressed into my sides.
Endure. Endure. Endure. Endure. Endure.
Last the night. My friends would be there in the morning. I promise.
Just endure.